I have my doubts that Paine is even the best keeper, keeper/batsman, or captain available for test selection, let alone being an automatic selection. He seems like a nice bloke, which is what CA want right now, but I doubt he would have been top of the list for selection this summer if the sandpaper lunacy hadn’t occured.
1 Like
I ask this question a lot: how many games in the last 10 years has the bowling of an Aussie all-rounder had any impact?
I reckon Watto ripped through RSA once; and one against Pakistan when they were terrible.
And that might be it
I could name about 20 games we’ve lost in part due to the failures of Marsh/Watson/Maxwell (etc) with the bat.
Doesn’t that say it all?
Pick a number 6 bat.
1 Like
He’s a state player at best.
Yeah I agree, you need a batsman who can bowl a bit, hold up an end with the ball, if they are any better than that then it’s bonus. Our problem has been that we pick mediocre batsman because they ‘good’ bowlers, but they rarely ever perform better than a part-timer.
Michael Clarke was the closest thing to an all-rounder we’ve had recently in my opinion, unfortunately his back held him back
Lol. I remember when i played we had about 5 guys in the team do that. We had the worst tea break spreads going around
Village
Wow. Sheeting home the blame for lost matches on one specific bloke… Jeepers.
It would be more accurate to say “their failure to rescue us from a complete top-order implosion where all batsmen have scored fark-all runs and we were hoping for our bowlers to score some more-than-handy runs and then bowl out the opposition for even less than our fark-all score”.
1 Like
Yeah it’s a curious thing to can the bloke batting at 6 or 7 for not saving your ■■■■ when the top order have lost 4/20…
Handscomb in. Wow
From Scum:
Australian skipper Tim Paine has named his XI ahead of tomorrow’s first Test against India, and it doesn’t include polarising all-rounder Mitch Marsh.
Mitch Marsh must have finally lost those compromising pictures he has carried around for 5 years.
1 Like
Confirmed by CA. Handscomb to bat 5 and Head at 6
Can’t believe they have made a decision that is actually the right one for a change.
1 Like
Crikey!
From Paine:
Explaining Marsh’s omission, Paine said: “We know he’s good enough to be a great allrounder at Test level but hasn’t quite put it together at Test level yet.”
How do we know if he has never done it?
2 Likes
I expect Langer’s regular invite to Marsh family BBQ has just been rescinded.
I’m happy with that team. I reckon we’re still a reasonable chance this summer as long as MMarch stays dropped and our fast bowlers stay fit
That is very surprising. I was expecting them to stick to the party line of “it’s a good bowling wicket, so we went with the extra batsman”. That way they could bring Marsh straight back in next test (as I fully expect them to).
What’s right?
MMarsh, Head, Handscomb are all equally crap.
If there was someone better out there, none of them would have been considered.
1 Like